All the headlines from our Drugs Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Jun 26 2019 // The billionaire owners of Purdue Pharma LP must face a New York lawsuit claiming they triggered the U.S. opioid epidemic, a judge ruled, handing an early victory to states and local governments seeking to recoup billions...
Jun 25 2019 // WELCH, West Virginia —The opioid epidemic that has so far killed half a million Americans is routinely blamed on greedy drug makers, feckless doctors and lax regulators. But there’s another group that has...
Jun 21 2019 // An Oklahoma case, the first of more than 1,600 lawsuits filed by U.S. state and local governments against opioid makers to go to trial, could serve as a key benchmark for governments hoping to recoup costs associated with...
Jun 20 2019 // An Ohio hospital system has reached nearly $4.5 million in settlements so far over the deaths of patients who allegedly received excessive painkiller doses ordered by a doctor now charged with murder.At least 29...
Jun 19 2019 // An online pharmacy told U.S. regulators it found another cancer-causing chemical in widely prescribed blood-pressure pills, raising new questions about a complex global web of companies that produces medicine for millions...
Jun 17 2019 // Oklahoma’s governor and Republican legislative leaders are raising concerns about the state’s proposed $85 million settlement with an opioid manufacturer that has yet to be approved by a judge.Gov. Kevin Stitt,...
Jun 17 2019 // Lawyers representing county and municipal governments accusing drug manufacturers and distributors of fueling the U.S. opioid epidemic proposed a novel plan on Friday that would allow every community nationally to...
Jun 13 2019 // Johnson & Johnson used promotional gimmicks for its opioid painkillers that are similar to how criminal drug dealers try to boost sales, a pharmaceutical-industry critic told a judge hearing Oklahoma’s claim that...
Jun 12 2019 // A new study shoots down the notion that medical marijuana laws can prevent opioid overdose deaths, challenging a favorite talking point of legal pot advocates.Researchers repeated an analysis that sparked excitement years...
Jun 11 2019 // Oklahoma’s star witness told a state judge that Johnson & Johnson pressed doctors to prescribe its painkillers even as the potentially fatal addictive threat posed by the drugs became clear more than a decade...
Jun 11 2019 // Massachusetts construction companies and labor unions held work stoppages at project sites across the state on Wednesday as their industry attempts to confront a high rate of fatal opioid overdoses among its ranks.Robert...
Jun 11 2019 // Marijuana has been shown to help ease pain and a few other health problems, yet two-thirds of U.S. states have decided pot should be legal to treat many other conditions with little scientific backing.At least 1.4 million...
Jun 7 2019 // In a common narrative of the path to opioid misuse, people become addicted to painkillers after a doctor prescribed them pills to treat an injury and then, later, switch to harder drugs, such as heroin. However,...
Jun 6 2019 // Insys Therapeutics Inc., grappling with the prospect of bankruptcy after its founder was convicted on racketeering charges, agreed to pay $225 million to settle U.S. claims that the drug maker illegally sold opioid-based...
Jun 3 2019 // New Jersey is suing eight members of the family that founded opioid drug maker Purdue Pharma over the lethal toll of the drugs.The Sackler family wasn’t satisfied with “merely raking in” millions of...
May 30 2019 // Austin Box was a home-grown football star at the University of Oklahoma in 2010 when back surgery to repair an injury got him started on powerful opioid painkillers that would end his life at 22, his father testified...
May 27 2019 // Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. agreed to pay $85 million to settle an Oklahoma lawsuit claiming that illegal marketing of its opioid painkillers contributed to a public health crisis in the state.The deal, announced...
May 27 2019 // Determining who foots the bill for America’s growing opioid epidemic may depend on how well the state of Oklahoma deploys a high-risk legal strategy this week against Johnson & Johnson and Teva Pharmaceutical...
May 24 2019 // Gail Box vividly remembers the day in May 2011 when she first learned her 22-year-old son Austin, a University of Oklahoma linebacker, was abusing opioid painkillers: It was the day he died of an overdose.In a few months...
May 22 2019 // Tennessee has joined a federal lawsuit in Connecticut against 20 generic drug manufacturers, alleging manipulation of prices.State Attorney General Herbert Slatery’s office says in a release that the drugs treat...